If you’ve seen The Notebook, Message in a Bottle, The Choice or any of the other films based on the novels of Nicholas Sparks, you know what to expect going into The Lucky One, his latest film adaptation, which opens Friday.

On a recent press tour to Dallas for the film, Sparks explained why that predictability is, in his opinion, a good thing.

“It is kind of a brand in Hollywood, the Nicholas Sparks movie,” the Omaha, Neb., native says with a laugh. “But that’s what people want when they see my name. They want to know what they’re going to get, and we give it to them.

“You know you’re going to have a story that moves the viewer, something that takes the characters through all of the emotions of life and evokes them in a genuine way. It’s not pure suspense, so it’s not like you have to be on the edge of your seats, but you do want that awareness of the emotional complexity of the story, of getting to know the characters.”

In this film, the main characters are Logan Thibault (Zac Efron), a U.S. Marine recently returned from his third tour of duty in Iraq; Beth (Taylor Schilling), a single mother who’s grieving a family member lost in that war; and Ben (Riley Thomas Stewart), her young son.

Sparks praised the “magnetic chemistry” of Efron and Schilling, predicting that this film could do for them what 2004’s The Notebook did for its then relatively unknown stars, Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams.

“I think people will definitely see Zac as a potential leading man after this,” Sparks says.

“Forget High School Musical,” he adds with a chuckle.

Luck, as the title suggests, plays a big part in the story — a photo that Logan finds in Iraq becomes his lucky charm and eventually leads him to Beth.

But Sparks plays down the fate element. “Fate is real only in retrospect, in my opinion,” he says. “Things happen that may be a turning point for us, but it all depends on the choices we make from that moment on. Most of our fate is self-determined.”

His books and film adaptations may have made him a literary superstar, but Sparks says his wife, Cathy, and five kids, ages 10 to 20, don’t get much involved in the glitz and glamour of his job.

“They [the kids] just get a little glimpse of it every now and then, when they realize that I can make a phone call and they can meet pretty much whoever they want. Justin Bieber came over and gave them Segway lessons. Then they thought I was cool.”

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